


Outlier

by Cantatrice18



Category: Incredibles (Pixar Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Misanthropy, Vignette, Villains to Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 18:19:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15540165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cantatrice18/pseuds/Cantatrice18
Summary: Mirage does not believe in love or compassion. Emotions are a waste of time and energy, self-serving and useless. Humanity is driven by ego, and Supers are just as selfish as ordinary men.Suddenly, without warning, Mirage meets the one man who can change her mind, a Super who shows mercy when he has nothing left to lose.





	Outlier

She hated the thinness. Other women envied it, she knew. In between calling her “skinny as a rail/boy/toothpick/beanpole”, and veiled hints about her eating habits, they would watch her with jealous, resentful eyes. She hated being watched. Her body, her appearance, meant nothing to her. She ate what she liked, when she liked. Her clothes were well-fitted because they had to be, not just for her job, but because she had to get her suits specially tailored. After all, Lord and Taylor did not stock pencil skirts in children’s sizes. 

She ignored her body, for the most part. She’d learned, through a study of human behavior, that certain men responded to it in ways ranging from flirtatious to aggressive. Consequently, she’d also learned to keep her nails sharp, even if they did create an obnoxious sound against the keys when she typed. She cultivated a persona commonly referred to as an “Ice Queen”: a powerful, aloof female figure that men could fantasize about to their hearts’ content, but could never obtain. She might not have cared about her body, but she certainly cared who touched her and when.  
Her mind was the bit of her self she took pride in. She’d graduated from MIT at age 19, done her Masters and doctoral work in London, then gone straight to the European Space Agency. She had a mind worthy of envy. Yet for some, seeing a slender, platinum-haired young woman calculating vectors and trajectories in her head was just too much. It didn’t help that her skin was darker, either. The prejudice drove her away from national space agencies and large corporations until finally she found Syndrome. Or rather, he found her. At first glance he was hard to take seriously – an overgrown boy with unkempt hair and freckles. But once she saw the technology he’d managed to create all by himself, and once he guaranteed that she’d be left alone to work, she’d seen no reason to refuse. Even the familiar, salivating look Syndrome sometimes wore when he looked at her didn’t scare her away. She could handle one handsy tech genius, even if he was obscenely rich and powerful. The promise of a life without judgment by her peers, without being dismissed for her looks or her gender, was worth any price. 

In all her research, she’d never found evidence of love’s existence. She hadn’t looked that closely, to be fair, preferring the company of machines to that of people. Her interactions with the Supers left her unmoved. Altruism and ego went hand in hand with that particular breed of humans. The desire for fame, praise, admiration, drove the Supers to commit their “acts of heroism”, not any special consideration for their fellow men. She hadn’t been surprised to learn how callous Mr. Incredible had been toward Syndrome when the inventor had been a boy. It fit with the profiling she’d done. People were, at their core, cruel beings. Powers made no difference, in that respect.

It was not until she heard Mr. Incredible break down that she began to doubt her conclusions. The loss of the jet and its passengers had struck him hard. It had hurt her too, to be honest. Her misanthropy rarely extended to innocent children, and she couldn’t help but wonder how old they’d been, whether they’d been Supers too, and whether they’d understood the reasons for their own demise. Mr. Incredible reacted as predictably as any man faced with a sudden loss. Mirage had studied the 5 stages of grief. Since denial was not an option, Mr. Incredible had moved instantly to anger. Aware that his rage would have a singular villain as its target, she’d blocked his strike by removing Syndrome from his reach. She had not considered the consequences to her own fragile body. The computer that was her mind instantly informed her that her odds of survival were nil should Mr. Incredible choose to crush her. Yet despite his size (and his rather unsophisticated set of Powers), Mr. Incredible spared her. This did not fit his profile, the profile of any Super, not in the slightest. Killing her would have given him satisfaction, would have done nothing to tarnish his image as a “Crime Fighting Champion”. She was, after all, a villainess (in his mind, at least). Moreover she would not be missed – Syndrome made that perfectly clear. It disappointed her that her long-term associate held her in such low regard after all their work together. But then, he was a man. By now she knew better than to expect compassion from men. 

Yet Mr. Incredible, for all his aching grief, had let her go. He’d valued her life, despite what she and Syndrome had taken from him. It baffled her. She hated outliers, pieces of data that did not fit the norm. Why had he cared, when even Syndrome hadn’t?

She found herself unable to think straight, unable to perform the calculations necessary for the rocket launch. She found Syndrome’s presence a constant annoyance, even when he wasn’t trying to touch her, to coax her into forgiving him. She found that the images of Mr. Incredible’s children, of his wife, of the hero himself, would not leave her mind. An odd ache had formed inside her, settling beneath her breastbone and driving away the customary void. She could feel her emotions, usually locked away and untouchable, roiling through her like angry snakes of pain, fear, sorrow. One thing was clear: she would not be able to rest until she atoned for what they’d done. Mr. Incredible was different – or was he? Would the others, the dozens of Supers they’d watched die at the hands of the Omnidroid, have done the same? Had they hidden untapped reserves of mercy and empathy beneath a façade of spandex suits and unnatural gifts? Guilt tore at her, threatening to ravage her from the inside. This had to stop. And only one man could stop it. It was time to put her faith in a Super to save her from the destruction she herself had wrought.


End file.
